Bipartisan budget deals rarely leave everyone happy, despite the praise they often receive. From a policy perspective, the 2014 appropriations bill doesn't spend enough to fully fund the infrastructure and education programs that our nation needs. It also doesn't cut enough to bring spending in line with revenue. So no surprise that budget accolades often aren't about the underlying policy ideas that drive funding, but the surprise that people who attack each other as existential threats to our nation somehow can agree on funding government operations - at least until the next budget crisis. So if you look at the actual funding choices in the $1 trillion appropriations bill, there are a few points that should make you scratch your head.

For example, the budget deal requires that the United States Postal Service continue to provide Saturday deliveries and prohibits it from closing rural post offices but doesn't appropriate enough money to cover those costs. Unfunded mandates are par for the course in government, but that still doesn't mean that they're good policy. You can't help but wonder whether Houstonians would need to worry about losing the post office on Almeda Road if the USPS could just cut some underperforming rural locations instead.

While there's a good deal of ink spilled over deficit concerns, the real risk isn't year-to-year spending but long-term entitlement outlays. So why is Congress then undoing reasonable cuts to military pensions' cost of living adjustments? Like Houston's municipal budget, entitlements are a growing part of the defense budget, one that crowds out spending for the military's true mission.

Cuts to funding for the Transportation Security Administration make sense if you're trying to punish the loathed security lines but seem misguided if you want airports to have enough TSA agents to make those lines run quickly.

There's also the budget cuts that have no immediate repercussion yet likely will hurt us in the long run. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are supposed to regulate Wall Street and prevent another financial disaster, will be starkly underfunded. As satirical website The Onion once noted, perhaps the American people need to get themselves a lobbyist.

It is a mixed bag for NASA, which will get enough funding to support some of its important space probe missions but still won't get the money it needs for a robust manned space program. If you're expecting some exciting new American footprints before China lands its own astronaut on the moon, prepare to be disappointed.

The Port of Houston also does well under the budget and should get more funding than it did last year. But at a time when 95 percent of the Houston Ship Channel isn't at its designed depth and width, getting more isn't the same as getting what it needs. And in an oddly specific portion of the bill, the federal government is prohibited from sending any dollars to Houston for rail on Richmond Avenue. Talk about big government interfering in local issues.

The budget has its problems. But the strength of the American republic is the ability of our diverse representatives from across a huge country to sit down at a table and hammer out a deal. That in itself is worth praising.